CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers have discovered a possible explanation for the surprisingly large range of biological effects that are linked to a micronutrient called lipoic acid: It appears to reset and synchronize circadian rhythms, or the "biological clock" found in most life forms. The ability of lipoic acid to help restore a more normal circadian rhythm to aging animals could explain its apparent value in so many important biological functions, ranging from stress resistance to cardiac function, hormonal balance, muscle performance, glucose metabolism and the aging ...

Throughout our lives, our brains adapt to what we learn and memorise. The brain is indeed made up of complex networks of neurons and synapses that are constantly re-configured. However, in order for learning to leave a trace, connections must be stabilized. A team at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) discovered a new cellular mechanism involved in the long-term stabilization of neuron connections, in which non-neuronal cells, called astrocytes, play a role unidentified until now. These results, published in Current Biology, will lead to a better understanding of neurodegenerative ...

The tenth tropical depression of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean was born as NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Depression 10W on July 17, as it came together northwest of the island of Yap. As Aqua passed overhead the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard captured infrared data that showed powerful thunderstorms developed around the storm's center. When AIRS gathered the data on the cloud tops, the temperatures were already as cold as -63F/-52C, indicating strong uplift has pushed them to the top of the troposphere. At ...

Typhoon Rammasun dropped large amounts of rainfall over the Philippines, and the TRMM satellite was used to measure it from space. Rammasun is now making its way toward Hainan Island, China. NASA and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency partner on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission or TRMM satellite. As TRMM orbits the Earth it has the ability to calculate rainfall occurring in storms and a rainfall analysis using TRMM and other data helps scientists calculate total rainfall. A preliminary analysis of rainfall during the period when typhoon Rammasun was moving ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Many beekeepers feed their honey bees sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup when times are lean inside the hive. This practice has come under scrutiny, however, in response to colony collapse disorder, the massive -- and as yet not fully explained -- annual die-off of honey bees in the U.S. and Europe. Some suspect that inadequate nutrition plays a role in honey bee declines. In a new study, described in Scientific Reports, researchers took a broad look at changes in gene activity in response to diet in the Western honey bee (Apis mellifera), and found ...

By carefully watching nearly a hundred hours of video showing mother rats protecting, warming, and feeding their young pups, and then matching up what they saw to real-time electrical readings from the pups' brains, researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center have found that the mother's presence and social interactions — her nurturing role — directly molds the early neural activity and growth of her offsprings' brain. Reporting in the July 21 edition of the journal Current Biology, the NYU Langone team showed that the mother's presence in the nest regulated and controlled ...

JUPITER, FL, July 17, 2014 – It is something of an eternal question: Can we slow or even reverse the aging process? Even though genetic manipulations can, in fact, alter some cellular dynamics, little is known about the mechanisms of the aging process in living organisms. Now scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have found in animal models that a single gene plays a surprising role in aging that can be detected early on in development, a discovery that could point toward the possibility of one day using therapeutics, even some commonly ...

University of Delaware researchers have identified a protein, hiding in plain sight, that acts like a bodyguard to help protect and stabilize another key protein, that when unstable, is involved in Crohn's disease. The fundamental research points to a possible pathway for developing an effective therapy for the inflammatory bowel disease. The research, by Catherine Leimkuhler Grimes, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UD, and Vishnu Mohanan, doctoral student in biological sciences, is published in the July 4 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry. ...

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed techniques for combining the views of 480 video cameras mounted in a two-story geodesic dome to perform large-scale 3D motion reconstruction, including volleyball games, the swirl of air currents and even a cascade of confetti. Though the research was performed in a specialized, heavily instrumented video laboratory, Yaser Sheikh, an assistant research professor of robotics who led the research team, said the techniques might eventually be applied to large-scale reconstructions of sporting events or performances ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 17, 2014 – A new analysis of data from 1988-2008 has revealed a 40% decrease in the incidence of stroke in Medicare patients 65 years of age and older. This decline is greater than anticipated considering this population's risk factors for stroke, and applies to both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. Investigators also found death resulting from stroke declined during the same period. Their findings are published in the July issue of The American Journal of Medicine. Preventable but deadly, stroke is the fourth leading cause of mortality in the ...

(New York, NY, July 12, 2014) - Researchers from the Center for Cognitive Neurology (CCN) at NYU Langone Medical Center, NYU School of Medicine, and the Nathan S. Kline Research Institute will present new findings at the 2014 Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, July 12 – 17, 2014. The Center for Cognitive Neurology is a multidisciplinary, integrated center devoted to research, clinical care and clinical advances toward the treatment and cure of neurological diseases affecting cognition -- focused on memory, language, attention, auditory, ...

FRANKFURT.In what parts of the world and to what degree have groundwater reservoirs been depleted over the past 50 years? The Frankfurt hydrologist Prof. Petra Döll has been researching this using the global water model WaterGAP. She has arrived at the most reliable estimate to date by taking into consideration processes which are important in dry regions of the world. The values calculated were compared with monitoring data from many different wells and data from the GRACE satellites. These satellites measure changes in the Earth's gravity field. Döll has come to the conclusion ...

This news release is available in French. Many patients continue to suffer from symptoms (headaches, pain) several months after an accident, which can pose a real handicap to their lives. The team of Emmanuel Lagarde, research director at Inserm's Research Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Inserm/University of Bordeaux) has studied the subsequent development of 1,300 people who were admitted to A&R between 2007 and 2009 for trauma. The researchers demonstrate that it is possible to identify people who will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, which generally ...

Genetics could be the key to explaining nation's levels of happiness, according to research from the University of Warwick. Economists at the University's Centre for Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE) have looked at why certain countries top the world happiness rankings. In particular they have found the closer a nation is to the genetic makeup of Denmark, the happier that country is. The research could help to solve the puzzle of why a country like Denmark so regularly tops the world happiness rankings. Dr Eugenio Proto and Professor Andrew Oswald ...

University of Houston researchers have devised a new method for extracting molecules from live cells without disrupting cell development, work that could provide new avenues for the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. The researchers used magnetized carbon nanotubes to extract biomolecules from live cells, allowing them to retrieve molecular information without killing the individual cells. A description of the work appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most current methods of identifying intracellular information result ...

There is often tension between setting insurance premiums that reflect risk and dealing with equity/affordability issues. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in the United States recently moved toward elimination of certain premium discounts, but this raised issues with respect to the affordability of coverage for homeowners in flood-prone areas. Ultimately, Congress reversed course and reinstated discounted rates for certain classes of policyholders. Carolyn Kousky (Resources for the Future, USA) and Howard Kunreuther's (The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, ...

As we all know, some optical devices can only work with a certain incident polarization direction. In this case, a polarizer is necessary to shift the polarization direction of linearly polarized light. A common polarizer is also called half-wave plate, which constructed out of a birefringent material (such as quartz or mica). The behaviour of a half-wave plate depends on the thickness of the crystal, the wavelength of light. Considering the fabrication of crystal, a half-wave plate is difficulty to integrate on circuits. Then what kind of polarizer can be integrated on ...

Philadelphia's SugarHouse Casino opened its doors in September 2010 after years of protests from community members who feared that the casino would lead to an increase in neighborhood crime. However, a new study by researchers at Drexel University and Temple University reveals that these concerns were unfounded. The study, which used geolocated crime data to examine changes in crime volume in the immediate neighborhood of the casino since its opening, found that crime rates in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia were largely unaffected by the introduction of the ...

University of Houston researchers have devised a new method for extracting molecules from live cells without disrupting cell development, work that could provide new avenues for the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases. The researchers used magnetized carbon nanotubes to extract biomolecules from live cells, allowing them to retrieve molecular information without killing the individual cells. A description of the work appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Most current methods of identifying intracellular information result ...

CLEVELAND -- A new study in Journal of General Internal Medicine reports that an hour-long educational coaching session and two or three follow-up phone calls after a hospital stay reduced re-admission odds by 39 percent among Medicare patients. The study also found that the average cost of care was reduced by $3,700 per patient for those patients who received the education session versus those who did not. This study is the first to report on a more comprehensive picture of healthcare use in the six months following the patient-centered coaching, called Care Transitions ...

Splice-Switching Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Is Promising New Method for Editing Gene Transcripts New Rochelle, NY, July 17, 2014—In splice-switching, an innovative therapeutic approach, targeted oligonucleotide drugs alter the editing of a gene transcript to produce the desired form of a protein. Developments in this rapidly advancing field have already led to promising treatments for such diseases as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and spinal muscular atrophy, as described in an article in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – Seeking ways to prevent some of the most serious foodborne illnesses caused by pathogenic bacteria, two Washington State University scientists have found promise in an ancient but common cooking spice: cinnamon. Recent findings published in Food Control journal online suggest Cinnamomum cassia oil can work effectively as a natural antibacterial agent in the food industry. The study results add to a body of knowledge that will help improve food safety and reduce or eliminate cases of food poisoning and related deaths. In the study, the essential oil ...

State-of-the-art military hardware could soon fight malaria, one of the most deadly diseases on the planet. Researchers at Monash University and the University of Melbourne have used an anti-tank Javelin missile detector, more commonly used in warfare to detect the enemy, in a new test to rapidly identify malaria parasites in blood. Scientists say the novel idea, published in the journal Analysis, could set a new gold standard for malaria testing. The technique is based on Fourier Transform Infrared (FITR) spectroscopy, which provides information on how molecules ...

Aberrant Wnt signaling is possibly related to the pathological changes in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Axin and β-catenin protein is closely related to Wnt signaling. Zhou Hua and his team, Hubei University of Chinese Medicine, China confirmed that moxibustion or electroacupuncture, or both, at Baihui (GV20) and Shenshu (BL23) acupoints decreased axin protein expression, increased β-catenin protein expression, and alleviated neuronal cytoplasmic edema. These findings suggest that the mechanism underlying the neuroprotective effect of acupuncture in AD is associated ...

Fructose-1,6-diphosphate is a metabolic intermediate that promotes cell metabolism. Whether it can alleviate hippocampal neuronal injury caused by febrile convulsion remains unclear. Dr. Jianping Zhou, the Second Affiliated Hospital, Medical College of Xi'an Jiaotong University, China and his team established a repetitive febrile convulsion model in rats aged 21 days, equivalent to 3𔃃 years in humans, intraperitoneally administered fructose-1,6-diphosphate at 1,000 mg/kg into the rat model. Results showed that high-dose fructose-1,6-diphosphate reduced mitochondrial ...